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Leonetti said on a recent podcast with Blumhouse's Shock waves: “Candidly, Steven Spielberg directed that movie. There’s no question.

"However, Tobe Hooper – I adore. I love that man so much… (He was) so nice and just happy to be there.

It was really more of a set-up because Steven developed the movie and it was his to direct, but there was anticipation of a director’s strike, so he was ‘the producer’ but really he directed it in case there was going to be a strike and Tobe was cool with that."

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Leonetti added: "It wasn’t really anything against Tobe. Every once in a while, he would actually leave the set and let Tobe do a few things just because. But really, Steven directed it.”

A documentary about the making of the movie showed that Speilberg made most decisions and Hooper was barely a presence on set.

As well as a safeguard against the looming strike, the alleged set-up also neatly sidestepped Spielberg's conract with Universal which forbade him from directing another film while he was preparing ET.

Rumours were rife even during production about what was going on.

Spielberg himself tried to douse the flames when he explained: “Tobe isn’t… a take-charge sort of guy. If a question was asked and an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, I’d jump in and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that became the process of collaboration.”